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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of

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Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all

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Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just

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Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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Speaker 1: If you're a fan of reality TV, then you might

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Speaker 1: have seen the British television show World's Most Dangerous Roads.

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Speaker 1: The host travelsome of the most treacherous roads the world over,

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Speaker 1: taking viewers through hairpin turns and dizzy heights. Or maybe

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Speaker 1: you're a fan of Deadliest Catch, a series that follows

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Speaker 1: crab fishermen braving rough weather and rogue waves out on

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Speaker 1: the bearing Straight. We have long had a fascinating with

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Speaker 1: dangerous jobs and those who perform them. Like Ronan. He

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Speaker 1: spent years working a deadly job as well, But unlike

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Speaker 1: reality stars, he doesn't do it for the money. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't get paid at all. Every day he risks

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Speaker 1: his life to help make communities safer, and he does

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Speaker 1: it for free. On a hot April morning in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five, Ronan arrived at the commune of Schwa'oram in Cambodia,

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Speaker 1: where he'd been working for the past four years. His

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Speaker 1: job is perilous and few are qualified to do it.

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Speaker 1: He arrived at the edge of a vast grassy valley

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Speaker 1: marked by a series of metal poles. These poles hold

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Speaker 1: up a grid of high wires that Ronan uses to

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Speaker 1: move across the field section by section. It's taken years

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Speaker 1: to canvass the entire area, but all he has left

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Speaker 1: now is a small section in the corner by the

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Speaker 1: jungle tree line. For safety, his partners clip him into

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Speaker 1: a bright red harness so that his feet barely touched

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Speaker 1: the ground, and then light as air. He makes his

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Speaker 1: way mission impossible style, across the grid, searching for any

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Speaker 1: indication that there might be something lethal buried beneath the grass.

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Speaker 1: Over the past four years, Ronan has found dozens of

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Speaker 1: buried land mines, all left over from the Cambodian Vietnamese War.

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Speaker 1: He works for a Dutch organization called the Anti Personnel

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Speaker 1: Landmines Detection Product Development or at POPO for short. Their

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Speaker 1: mission is to travel the world clearing out land mine

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Speaker 1: fields left behind in former conflict zones. It's estimated that

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Speaker 1: there are more than one hundred and ten million land

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Speaker 1: mines buried in sixty countries around the world, but the

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Speaker 1: number of land mines in Cambodia has been especially treacherous.

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Speaker 1: Over the last forty five years, land mines have caused

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Speaker 1: more than sixty five thousand deaths in Cambodia and more

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Speaker 1: cases of amputation due to land mines than in any

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Speaker 1: other country in the world. But at Popo is committed

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Speaker 1: to change that with the help of highly skilled workers

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Speaker 1: like Ronan. Since they were founded twenty five years ago,

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Speaker 1: they have cleared almost one hundred and seventy fires, land mines,

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Speaker 1: and other explosives, making the world a safer place. One

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Speaker 1: of the amazing things about Ronan is that rather than

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Speaker 1: scanning the landscape for signs of these deadly devices with

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Speaker 1: his eyes, he uses a different method his sense of smell.

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Speaker 1: The chemical compounds found in land mines can be detected,

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Speaker 1: and when he locates one, Ronan points out its location

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Speaker 1: to his partners By doing something incredibly risky, he stands

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Speaker 1: on top of it. Thankfully, Ronan does it way enough

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Speaker 1: to actually detonate the land mine. In fact, he only

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Speaker 1: clocks in at roughly three pounds, and that's because Ronan

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Speaker 1: isn't human. No, He's an African giant pouched rat, the

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Speaker 1: largest species of rats in the world. He's about three

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Speaker 1: feet long from nose to tail, with oversized ears and

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Speaker 1: a bullet shaped face, and like most giant pouch rats,

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Speaker 1: he is highly intelligent, with a keen sense of smell,

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Speaker 1: which makes him an ideal candidate for this kind of work.

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Speaker 1: In fact, at Popo, rats are trained to detect far

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Speaker 1: more than land mines. Some of Ronan's co workers are

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Speaker 1: capable of smelling tuberculosis in medical settings to help stop

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Speaker 1: the spread of the deadly disease. They can also sniff

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Speaker 1: out earthquake survivors buried beneath rubble, and detect smuggled wildlife

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Speaker 1: parts like elephant tusks to help catch poachers. But few

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Speaker 1: rats are as prolific as Ronan. In fact, earlier this year,

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Speaker 1: he became the first Apopo rat to detect one hundred

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Speaker 1: land mines, setting a new world record, and in the

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Speaker 1: days that followed, he finished his sweep of that particular valley,

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Speaker 1: detecting nine more. That is, one hundred and nine more

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Speaker 1: lives potentially saved and one hundred and nine land mines

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Speaker 1: rated out. You may have heard the phrase the gold standard,

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Speaker 1: but it's not something most people fully understand. And sure,

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Speaker 1: we know that gold is valuable, and they might be

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Speaker 1: aware that the American government keeps a lot of it

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Speaker 1: at Fort Knox, but mostly just because of the James

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Speaker 1: Bond movie Goldfinger. In reality, the gold standard is no

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Speaker 1: longer in use, although gold still holds its value. It's

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Speaker 1: a long curious history, one that includes multiple well known presidents.

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Speaker 1: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt inherited a catastrophic economy when he

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Speaker 1: took office in nineteen thirty three. The nineteen twenties had

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Speaker 1: been prosperous, but led to overproduction, overspending, and over speculation

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Speaker 1: that caused the stock market to crash in nineteen twenty

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Speaker 1: nine and the subsequent Great Depression to follow. Herbert Hoover,

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Speaker 1: the president before FDR, tried to solve the problem by

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Speaker 1: raising tariffs on other countries and revoking the work visas

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Speaker 1: of almost two million Mexican immigrants. He hoped to make

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Speaker 1: more off the exports to other countries and to provide

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Speaker 1: more jobs for Americans, but neither action worked. The other

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Speaker 1: countries just raised tariffs of their own in return, and

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Speaker 1: the loss of Mexican immigrants actually led to more unemployments

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Speaker 1: among American citizens as corporations suffered from the loss of

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Speaker 1: cheap labor. While assessing the situation, FDR felt that the

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Speaker 1: United States needed to incentivize other countries to buy its exports. Again,

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Speaker 1: the country was suffering from deflation. In other words, prices

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Speaker 1: had far exceeded demand because no one was buying anything anymore. Also,

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Speaker 1: at this time, most global currencies were based on what

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Speaker 1: was known as the gold standard, the idea that the

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Speaker 1: government of a country could back up its currency with

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Speaker 1: actual physical gold. In nineteen thirty three, a US dollar

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Speaker 1: was worth one twentieth of an ounce of gold. Some

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Speaker 1: feared that the government would try to print more dollars

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Speaker 1: to pay off its debts, and this would mean that

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Speaker 1: money was worth even less than gold, and so Americans

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Speaker 1: started to hoard what gold they had. The idea was

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Speaker 1: that even if the dollar became worthless, the perceived intrinsic

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Speaker 1: value of gold might still make it worth something. A

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Speaker 1: bit confusing, but keep in mind economics is all just

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Speaker 1: about perceived value. A dollar or a stock is valuable

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Speaker 1: because people agree that it's valuable. Gold is a rare

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Speaker 1: mineral with many practical applications, but the majority of it

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Speaker 1: is used to make jewelry. It has value because humans

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Speaker 1: have simply decided that it does. And with all of

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Speaker 1: this in mind, FDR came up with a very controversial

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Speaker 1: solution to solve the country's problems all at once. He

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Speaker 1: issued Executive Order six' one zero, two which made it

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Speaker 1: illegal For americans to old gold bullion or. Coins they

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Speaker 1: had to trade it into the government for. DOLLARS fdr

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Speaker 1: also began printing more dollars and reduced the value of

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Speaker 1: a dollar from one twentieth of an ounce of gold

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Speaker 1: to one thirty fifth of an ounce of. Gold this

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Speaker 1: basically created the scenario that individual gold hoarders had hoped

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Speaker 1: would benefit, them but instead it allowed it to benefit

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Speaker 1: the federal. Government and this might have hurt the Average

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Speaker 1: american if it wasn't for the fact that it completely

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Speaker 1: reinvated the. Economy with The american dollar now, Worthless american

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Speaker 1: goods were now in higher demand overseas because they were.

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Speaker 1: Cheaper american manufacturers could resume high levels of, production attract,

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Speaker 1: investors and employ more. Workers, meanwhile the government could leverage

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Speaker 1: its gold reserves to spend more on government programs that

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Speaker 1: also benefited the Average. American the gold standard was effectively

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Speaker 1: ended in THE us because now gold was just a

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Speaker 1: commodity that the government bought and, sold not this all

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Speaker 1: powerful resource that the dollar depended. On it continued to

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Speaker 1: be illegal to own, gold although gold, jewelry, artwork and

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Speaker 1: manufactured parts were allowed all the way up until nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: Four today you can buy gold like you might buy

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Speaker 1: a publicly traded, stock or even purchase physical coins and

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Speaker 1: bars that you can. Hold that, is of, course if

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Speaker 1: you can afford. It so the next time someone uses

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Speaker 1: the phrase the gold, standard just remember how complicated that

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Speaker 1: idea really is and how our move away from it

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Speaker 1: transformed the. WORLD i hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

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Speaker 1: of The cabinet Of. Curiosities subscribe for free On Apple,

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Speaker 1: podcasts or learn more about the show by Visiting curiosities

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Speaker 1: podcast dot. Com the show was created by Me Aaron

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Speaker 1: mankey in partnership with How Stuff. WORKS i make another

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Speaker 1: award winning show Called, lore which is a, podcast book,

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Speaker 1: series and television, show and you can learn all about

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Speaker 1: it over at the worldoflore dot, com and until next,

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Speaker 1: time stay. Curious