Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: 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. Life can get pretty mundane on this planet.
Speaker 1: Wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed.
Speaker 1: It's understandable that many of us want something more, something exciting,
Speaker 1: and to find it we need to look elsewhere. August
Speaker 1: Picard had dreams like those. He and his twin brother,
Speaker 1: Jean Felix Picard were born in Switzerland to a father
Speaker 1: who taught chemistry at the local university. Science was in
Speaker 1: their blood, so it was no surprise when they enrolled
Speaker 1: at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to pursue complementary degrees.
Speaker 1: August got his degree in physics, while Jean Felix earned
Speaker 1: his degree in chemistry. August enjoyed college life and even
Speaker 1: stayed at the university to teach for several years after graduation. Eventually,
Speaker 1: he took a job as a professor at the University
Speaker 1: of Brussels in their physics department. Now around, Piccard became
Speaker 1: fascinated with ballooning and exploring the heavens. Specifically, he wanted
Speaker 1: to prove some of Einstein's theories correct by analyzing cosmic radiation,
Speaker 1: so he designed a brand new mode of transportation. Its
Speaker 1: purpose was to carry him high enough to capture and
Speaker 1: study the cosmic rays in the atmosphere. What he designed
Speaker 1: was a pressurized aluminum sphere or gondola, which would be
Speaker 1: lifted into the upper atmosphere by a hot air balloon
Speaker 1: filled with hydrogen. The gondola was big enough to carry
Speaker 1: Piccard and a fellow scientist, Paul Kipfer, high over Germany.
Speaker 1: They launched the vessel on May nineteen thirty one, and
Speaker 1: almost immediately encountered a problem. The gondola had sprung a leak. Luckily,
Speaker 1: with a few items they had on hands, such as
Speaker 1: vassoline and cotton, the two men were able to plug
Speaker 1: the leak and continue their ascent. They reached an eye
Speaker 1: popping fifty one thousand, seven hundred and seventy five ft
Speaker 1: nearly ten miles high, and became the first people to
Speaker 1: ever reach the stratosphere. According to many They were also
Speaker 1: the first to ever see the Earth's curvature. Their analysis
Speaker 1: of the cosmic radiation at that altitude yielded impressive results.
Speaker 1: Picard determined that the rays were stronger up there than
Speaker 1: they were back on land, and he scooped some of
Speaker 1: the air into vials to take back to his lab
Speaker 1: to study. With their field work just about done, Picard
Speaker 1: and kip Fur started their descent back to Earth, or
Speaker 1: at least they tried. Unable to lower the balloon they
Speaker 1: were tethered to, the men drifted over much of Europe,
Speaker 1: wafting through Germany, Italy, and Austria. However, fortune again favored them,
Speaker 1: as the night air chilled and the balloon was forced
Speaker 1: to finally land. It deposited Piccarda and his partner on
Speaker 1: a glacier seventeen hours after they had first launched. Their
Speaker 1: oxygen tank only had an hour's worth of air left.
Speaker 1: After his successful, yet terrifying trip, Picard continued to explore
Speaker 1: the sky, setting another record the following year, but after
Speaker 1: two dozen flights, he decided he wanted to see somewhere else.
Speaker 1: In fact, he wanted to visit the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: the stratosphere. Picard was determined to go deeper. He realized
Speaker 1: that with some modifications to his original design, he could
Speaker 1: make a version of his gondola that would take him
Speaker 1: to the deepest parts of the ocean, areas that had
Speaker 1: never been seen by human eyes before, and in seven
Speaker 1: he debuted his newest creation, the Bath Escape, Except it
Speaker 1: wasn't actually built yet. Although he started construction soon after
Speaker 1: he finished the blueprints, Picard was forced to wait until
Speaker 1: after World War Two had ended before he could finish
Speaker 1: building it. The Bath Escape was finally completed in night.
Speaker 1: Rather than use aluminum for his design, Picard built a
Speaker 1: small spherical vessel out of steel. It had been designed
Speaker 1: to withstand thousands of pounds of external pressure at great depths.
Speaker 1: It was also attached to a massive tank filled with gasoline,
Speaker 1: which was lighter than water and unable to be compressed.
Speaker 1: To get the whole apparatus to sink, heavy iron weights
Speaker 1: were attached that pulled both the capsule and the gas
Speaker 1: tank to a depth of four thousand, six hundred feet.
Speaker 1: There were also motors on board to assist in underwater
Speaker 1: propulsion and to bring it back to the surface. All
Speaker 1: he had to do was cut the weights loose and
Speaker 1: let buoyancy do the rest. Picard himself couldn't actually ride
Speaker 1: in the first bath escape, he ran several unmanned attempts
Speaker 1: before handing it over to the French Navy two years later.
Speaker 1: He then built another with his son in nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: and together they reached a depth of almost two miles,
Speaker 1: deeper than anyone had ever gone before. August Picard lived
Speaker 1: to seventy eight years old, passing away in March of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, but he left a lasting legacy, and
Speaker 1: not just on the scientific community. He followed in the
Speaker 1: footsteps of another former member of the Cabinets of Curiosities,
Speaker 1: a man named Palais Hould, who, if you remember, navigated
Speaker 1: the globe at only fifteen years old. And more Hold
Speaker 1: had gone on to inspire Belgian cartoonist Her j to
Speaker 1: create the character Tintin. Picard influenced another of HER's characters,
Speaker 1: Tintin's friend, the scientist and inventor, Professor Cuthbert Calculus. Everyone
Speaker 1: has a hidden talent. Somebody looking to break the ice
Speaker 1: might mention how they can sing or perform magic tricks,
Speaker 1: while another might be a skilled guitar player. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who you are or what you do for a living,
Speaker 1: you have something about you that makes you special. But
Speaker 1: in nineteenth century America, having a unique talent or looking
Speaker 1: a certain way did more than make you special, It
Speaker 1: made you different, like Ella Harper. Ella was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two William Harper and Minerva and childress.
Speaker 1: She grew up in a farming family with four other siblings,
Speaker 1: one of whom sadly passed away at only three months old.
Speaker 1: Ella was born a little different from the others, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't because of her hair color or how tall
Speaker 1: she was. It was because she was flexible. You see,
Speaker 1: Ella had been born with a rare condition called congenital
Speaker 1: genuine record bottom, which affected how her knee joints developed,
Speaker 1: allowing them to bend backward. Pretty quickly. She became a
Speaker 1: child star, touring nearby states like Missouri and Louisiana as
Speaker 1: part of the circus, demonstrating her ability to walk on
Speaker 1: all fours by bending her knees ninety degrees in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction. Her performances even earned her the nickname the
Speaker 1: camel Girl, because camels also walk with their knees bent
Speaker 1: in such a fashion. In eighteen eighties six, when she
Speaker 1: was just sixteen years old, Ella met a man named W. H. Harris.
Speaker 1: He was the owner of the Nickel Plate Show, a
Speaker 1: traveling circus that was almost on par with P. T. Barnum's.
Speaker 1: Harris had a cadre of animals and sideshow performers, but
Speaker 1: Ella was something special. He offered her a job performing
Speaker 1: for two hundred dollars a week. Adjusted for inflation, that
Speaker 1: comes out to a weekly salary of roughly five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today, an unfathomable amount of money in eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: especially for a sixteen year old girl. Ella continued to
Speaker 1: be advertised as the Camel Girl and was often exhibited
Speaker 1: alongside a real camel for comparison. Spectators were beckoned forward
Speaker 1: to come and see the girl who walked on her
Speaker 1: feet and hands just like an animal. Before she was unveiled,
Speaker 1: cards would be handed out to the public that described
Speaker 1: Ella and how she almost never walked on two legs.
Speaker 1: She preferred to get around on her hands and feet,
Speaker 1: shuffling forward like a camel without the humps. The cards
Speaker 1: also encouraged audiences to see her while they still could,
Speaker 1: as she had been touring for four years and was
Speaker 1: leaving the circus soon to go to school, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't a marketing employee either. Ella really was planning on
Speaker 1: leaving the entertainment business entirely before the end of the year,
Speaker 1: and at the close of eighteen eighty six she took
Speaker 1: her earnings and went into retirement. She practically vanished until
Speaker 1: fourteen years later when her name popped up on census
Speaker 1: records for nineteen hundred. Ella had gone back to Tennessee
Speaker 1: to live with her mother. Sadly, her father and one
Speaker 1: of her brothers had died in the interim, but eventually
Speaker 1: she fell in love with a teacher and shopkeeper named
Speaker 1: Robert Safeley. The two were married in nineteen o five
Speaker 1: and had one daughter, Mabel, as if the deaths of
Speaker 1: her siblings and father weren't enough, though Ella suddenly lost
Speaker 1: Mabel six months after her birth. She and Robert moved
Speaker 1: to another county in Tennessee, where they took in Ella's
Speaker 1: mother to live with them, and then in nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: the couple adopted a baby girl named Jewel. Yet tragedy
Speaker 1: seemed to fall of them wherever they went, and Jewel
Speaker 1: passed away when she was only three months old. Ella
Speaker 1: and Roberts moved one last time to Nashville, where she
Speaker 1: finally succumbed to colon cancer in December of nine, at
Speaker 1: the age of fifty one. Her mother died three years later.
Speaker 1: It was believed that Ella was buried next to her children.
Speaker 1: She had been born with a condition that would have
Speaker 1: affected her in any number of ways. Many diagnosed with
Speaker 1: genue ricravatum often experienced chronic pain and osteo arsthritis. Also,
Speaker 1: given the time period, she could have found herself unable
Speaker 1: to maintain a job or even find a partner as
Speaker 1: a result of her condition. But Ella Harper showed them all.
Speaker 1: She used her gifts to entertain crowds and earned a
Speaker 1: lot of money in the process, getting out of the
Speaker 1: circus and building a life for herself and her family.
Speaker 1: She made the best of her situation, something we should
Speaker 1: all aspire to, and it's fair to say to the
Speaker 1: circus audiences in Tennessee at least, she was definitely the
Speaker 1: bee's knees. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Ye