Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Charles had always been
Speaker 1: a little different. His family looked up to him. Everyone
Speaker 1: he met did too. They couldn't help it. He was
Speaker 1: over seven ft tall. His parents claimed his towering height
Speaker 1: was due to his conception atop a haystack, though the
Speaker 1: real reason for his stature didn't matter to him. All
Speaker 1: he knew was that in Ireland in seventeen sixty one,
Speaker 1: he was an anomaly, a freak, as they used to
Speaker 1: call him, and it wasn't long before he had outgrown
Speaker 1: the tiny village where he lived. Literally as a teenager,
Speaker 1: Charles set out for Scotland and began perform a mean
Speaker 1: fun tricks for the people that he met. He liked
Speaker 1: to see the reactions on their faces as he lit
Speaker 1: his pipe using a nearby street lamp. His charm and
Speaker 1: personality made him a sensation, so much so that a
Speaker 1: stage show was written and performed about the larger than
Speaker 1: life Irish transplant Charles. Fame had earned him quite a
Speaker 1: bit of money too, which he carried on him at
Speaker 1: all times. He didn't use banks, nor did he keep
Speaker 1: anything in a secret hiding place at home. Unfortunately, many
Speaker 1: locals knew about his wealth, which made him an easy target.
Speaker 1: After a night of heavy drinking, a pickpocket managed to
Speaker 1: lift every last bill off the seven foot tall giant,
Speaker 1: leaving him penniless. To make matters worse, it started to
Speaker 1: come to light that Charles height had come at a cost.
Speaker 1: While the story about the haystack was a fun way
Speaker 1: to play off their sun situation, the truth had actually
Speaker 1: been much darker. Charles Burne had been born with a
Speaker 1: tumor in his pituitary gland, which had accelerated his growth.
Speaker 1: His health eventually took a bad turn, and, compounded with
Speaker 1: his sudden extreme poverty, left him without any kind of
Speaker 1: fighting chance at survival. He died at twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: broke and homeless. But the story of the Irish Giant
Speaker 1: doesn't end there. In fact, it gets a little stranger. See,
Speaker 1: Charles had died at a time when the medical field
Speaker 1: was entering an era of intense research, when patients alive
Speaker 1: or dead were being experimented on in new sometimes inhumane ways.
Speaker 1: The dead rarely got a chance to rest, as undertakers
Speaker 1: sold bodies on the black market to desperate medical researchers.
Speaker 1: Charles Byrne had known all about these kinds of doctors
Speaker 1: and how they'd want to study his body after he
Speaker 1: was gone. One in particular had been on his radar
Speaker 1: for some time. He was a surgeon and collector of
Speaker 1: biological specimens named John Hunter, an apt name for someone
Speaker 1: who spent his life in pursuit of rare cadavers. Prior
Speaker 1: to his death, Charles had asked a group of friends
Speaker 1: to make sure his body would be buried at sea,
Speaker 1: far from the hands of doctor Hunter. They agreed to
Speaker 1: his wishes, and after he passed away, had his body
Speaker 1: placed in a lead lined coffin before casting it to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean. Looking back, it's a wonder
Speaker 1: that it sank at all, Given that the coffin had
Speaker 1: been empty. There would have been no way for doctor
Speaker 1: Hunter to retrieve Charles's body once it had slipped beneath
Speaker 1: the waves. So the good doctor turned to his trust
Speaker 1: the assistant cold hard Cash. He paid Charles, Burns and
Speaker 1: Balmer to steal the corpse before it went into the coffin.
Speaker 1: Charles friends had no idea, at least not for a year.
Speaker 1: During that time, doctor Hunter performed all sorts of experiments
Speaker 1: on the late Irish giants corpse, leaving behind nothing more
Speaker 1: than his oversized bones. His skeleton remains the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: the hunter Arian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons
Speaker 1: in London. John Hunter's contributions to medicine can't be understated.
Speaker 1: Thanks to his research, we have a greater understanding of
Speaker 1: how our bones develop over time, and how gunshot wounds
Speaker 1: and venereal diseases affected By his legacy, However, we'll always
Speaker 1: have a large blemish upon it for not letting a
Speaker 1: poor young man rest in peace. Just how large, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd say about seven and a half feet tall. No
Speaker 1: one knows how it got there or its true purpose.
Speaker 1: Its builder has left no written records. It has existed
Speaker 1: for thousands of years in the middle of a field
Speaker 1: in Wiltshire, England, where it draws nearly a million visitors
Speaker 1: each year. It's thirteen foot tall stones stands straight up,
Speaker 1: each weigh in about twenty five tons, and the method
Speaker 1: of its construction continues to baffle historians to this day.
Speaker 1: Stonehenge may not be one of the Seven Wonders of
Speaker 1: the World, but it's no less on inspiring. When examined
Speaker 1: up close. The sheer enormity of the stones does make
Speaker 1: people wonder how they were moved and arranged in the
Speaker 1: first place. According to twelfth century writer Jeffrey of Monmouth,
Speaker 1: King Arthur's faithful wizard Merlin constructed it himself. But although
Speaker 1: it sits in a wide open meadow surrounded by grass,
Speaker 1: visiting Stonehenge today requires the purchase of a ticket. It
Speaker 1: takes a whole team of guards, groundskeepers and restoration experts
Speaker 1: to keep the Neolithic structure intact, and that costs money.
Speaker 1: I've been there myself and paid the price of admission.
Speaker 1: In fact, money is what begins our story in the
Speaker 1: first place. During the early fifteen hundreds, King Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth owned Stonehenge after seizing the land upon which it sat.
Speaker 1: It eventually passed down to the Earl of Hartford, followed
Speaker 1: by countless other owners until eighteen twenty four. At that time,
Speaker 1: the site was purchased by a wealthy family from Cheshire,
Speaker 1: who maintained ownership for almost a century. Then, in nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: after the last heir to the land was killed fighting
Speaker 1: in France during World War One. The family put the
Speaker 1: land up for auction. The auction was held at the
Speaker 1: Palace Theater in Salisbury. Of all the people present, one
Speaker 1: stood out Cecil Chub. He was born and Shrewden, about
Speaker 1: four miles from Stonehenge, and being a successful lawyer, had
Speaker 1: become quite wealthy. When the lot was announced, Cecil hadn't
Speaker 1: expected to bid, but the more he thought about it,
Speaker 1: the better the idea sounded to him. A Lot fifteen
Speaker 1: contained a little over thirty acres of land, including Stonehenge itself.
Speaker 1: When the final bid was collected, it was Cecil Chub
Speaker 1: who came out on top, having spent six thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. By today's standards, that puts the total at
Speaker 1: almost seven hundred thousand American dollars. He didn't hold on
Speaker 1: to the property long, though, he believed that such an
Speaker 1: iconic and wondrous site should not belong to just one person,
Speaker 1: but to a nation as a whole. In nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: three years after purchasing it, he formally rescinded his ownership
Speaker 1: and gave Stonehenge to England, though he also included a
Speaker 1: number of conditions. First, all local residents should have free
Speaker 1: access to see at any time, and second, outside visitors
Speaker 1: should be charged no more than a shilling for entry.
Speaker 1: Since then, Stonehenge's value has gone up a bit. Locals
Speaker 1: are still allowed to see it at no cost, but
Speaker 1: visitors must pay five pounds to gaze upon the stones.
Speaker 1: If it were being sold at auction today, it's estimated
Speaker 1: that the ancient site could fetch as high as sixty
Speaker 1: five million American dollars. Quite a smart investment in hindsight,
Speaker 1: but at the time there really wasn't any reason to
Speaker 1: own the land other than to build upon it. Chub
Speaker 1: had no interest in using the area for new construction,
Speaker 1: so why buy it at all? Well, he did it
Speaker 1: for the best reason of all, love, of course, love
Speaker 1: for his hometown, and love for his wife. He believed
Speaker 1: that if anyone was going to own that ring of stones,
Speaker 1: it should be a local man, not some company or
Speaker 1: investor from overseas. And more importantly, he wanted to give
Speaker 1: his wife a special gift, something she could look at
Speaker 1: and remember just how much he loved her. As it
Speaker 1: turns out, she wasn't thrilled with his last minute per
Speaker 1: just which may have fueled his desire to give it
Speaker 1: back to England. However, his philanthropic gesture was recognized in
Speaker 1: n when he was made a baronet by Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Lloyd George, so perhaps the investment paid off after all.
Speaker 1: If there is a lesson to be learned here, though,
Speaker 1: I think it's this. While it's a good idea to
Speaker 1: buy your true love a ring, buying them Stonehenge might
Speaker 1: be a bit too much. 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. Two