Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Menke'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. Wars are not often fought for trivial reasons.
Speaker 1: World War One started after the assassination of Archduke Fronts
Speaker 1: Ferdinand of Austria Hungary, while World War Two officially began
Speaker 1: after Hitler invaded Poland in nineteen thirty nine. Wars are
Speaker 1: messy for both sides, so a cause must be justified.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the case, however, when two Italian city states
Speaker 1: went head to head in their reason was flimsy, nothing
Speaker 1: more than a drop in a bucket. Since eleven medieval
Speaker 1: Italy had been a battle ground between two factions, the
Speaker 1: Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The Guelfs supported the Pope, while
Speaker 1: the Ghibillines were on the side of the Holy Roman Empire,
Speaker 1: both of whom desired to rule over all Christendom. The
Speaker 1: Guelfs and the Ghibillines fought for over three hundred years,
Speaker 1: during which time things came to a head between the
Speaker 1: capital city of Bologna and the municipality of Modena and
Speaker 1: northern Italy. This region was well educated and well off,
Speaker 1: but the surplus of money and high literacy rates didn't
Speaker 1: stop the two sides from fighting. The future of Christianity
Speaker 1: was at stake, as was the land between them. Bologna
Speaker 1: was firmly on the side of the Guelfs, while Modena
Speaker 1: was Ghibilline territory, and both regions fought regularly over their borders.
Speaker 1: One night, a group of Modanese soldiers crossed over into
Speaker 1: Bologna without anyone noticing. With no one around a fight,
Speaker 1: and not wanting to stir up any trouble, they absconded
Speaker 1: with a bucket from a well in the middle of
Speaker 1: the city. It was made of oak with iron bands
Speaker 1: around it and a metal handle at the top. The
Speaker 1: next morning, the Bolonese people noticed the bucket missing and
Speaker 1: looked out only to see it on full display by
Speaker 1: the enemy. They demanded it be returned at once and order,
Speaker 1: which the Modonese ignored. The bucket was now a trophy,
Speaker 1: a symbol of their superiority, and the Bolonese were out
Speaker 1: of options. With no other course of action available, Bologna
Speaker 1: declared war on Modena. The offended city raised an army
Speaker 1: of over thirty thousand against Modana's paltry seven thousand men.
Speaker 1: To make matters worse for the Modonese, they were stuck
Speaker 1: on flat ground while the Bolony surrounded them from a
Speaker 1: higher ground. And yet despite their weaker numbers and disadvantaged position,
Speaker 1: Modana's army fought valiantly, pushing back against Bologna's forces and
Speaker 1: forcing them to retreat. As the Bullonese fled back to
Speaker 1: their home territory with their tails between their legs and
Speaker 1: no bucket, Modena was close behind. They weren't about to
Speaker 1: victory go to waste. They attacked Bologna, tearing down castles
Speaker 1: and restricting its water supply, but that was about all
Speaker 1: they did. Rather than burn the city to the ground,
Speaker 1: Modenese soldiers chosen instead to carry out a humiliating display
Speaker 1: of athletic prowess just outside its walls, an act that
Speaker 1: was meant to shame the Bolonese for their defeat. Modena
Speaker 1: also stole another bucket. About three thousand people died in
Speaker 1: the Battle of Zeppolina, with Modena losing five men and
Speaker 1: Bologna suffering a loss of It was a bloody fight
Speaker 1: over nothing more than an absurd prank, or was it?
Speaker 1: You See, that story is often told because of how
Speaker 1: unlikely it seems, and that's exactly the problem with it.
Speaker 1: It's too good to be true. Well, Dana did take
Speaker 1: a bucket from Bologna, but that didn't spark a battle,
Speaker 1: it ended it. What had really caused the skirmish was
Speaker 1: a steady escalation of attacks on both sides. Bologna went
Speaker 1: after Medana's territory in July. In August, and Modena retaliat
Speaker 1: it in the fall. The two factions met in the
Speaker 1: village of Zappollino, which resided in Bolognese territory. Their armies
Speaker 1: varied wildly in size and skill. Modina may have only
Speaker 1: had about seven thousand soldiers, but they were far better
Speaker 1: trained than Bologna's massive force, which was why they were
Speaker 1: able to defeat them so swiftly. The fight lasted about
Speaker 1: two hours, and by the end Bologna had been beaten.
Speaker 1: Modina then destroyed a sluice on the Reno River, which
Speaker 1: cut off Bologna's water supply, and then Modina left, but
Speaker 1: not before snatching the wooden bucket from a well outside
Speaker 1: the city. After all, what was Bologna going to do
Speaker 1: without water anyway. Today, a replica of the bucket hangs
Speaker 1: in the bell tower at the Cathedral of Modena. Another
Speaker 1: replica is kept under glass at city Hall. The real bucket, however,
Speaker 1: is stored deep in the basement of the cathedral, and
Speaker 1: the people of Bologna haven't stopped trying to steal it
Speaker 1: back all these years later. Maybe they want to make
Speaker 1: their city whole again, or maybe they're just itching for
Speaker 1: a rematch. Halloween is considered the spookiest time of the year.
Speaker 1: Children dress up as ghouls and goblins, terrorizing their neighborhoods
Speaker 1: in search of candy, and knife wielding mannekins wearing hockey
Speaker 1: masks during the lawns of homeowners looking to scare the
Speaker 1: socks off of unsuspecting trick or treaters. It's a fun
Speaker 1: time for everyone, or at least it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The scares to be had at Halloween are meant to
Speaker 1: be harmless fun, but in one small town in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: experienced a Halloween fright unlike any other, and it killed
Speaker 1: almost two dozen people in the process. The borough of
Speaker 1: Dinorah sits along the western edge of the state, about
Speaker 1: fifty miles from the Ohio border. Though only two square
Speaker 1: miles in size, Donora was once the hotbed of industrial activity.
Speaker 1: It also claims Ken Griffey Senior and Junior as hometown heroes.
Speaker 1: The burgeoning steel, coal, and agricultural industries brought thousands of
Speaker 1: people to Donora in search of work. As of nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: it was home to over eight thousand residents. That number
Speaker 1: almost doubled once US Steel opened a zinc works facility
Speaker 1: and a steel and wire plant in nineteen fifteen. But
Speaker 1: with those jobs came something else, something deadly. It appeared
Speaker 1: over the town on October twenty seven, nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: only a few days before Halloween. The annual Children's Halloween
Speaker 1: Parade was already under way, with kids of all ages
Speaker 1: dressed up marching down the main street to show off
Speaker 1: their costumes to parents and spectators lining the road. It
Speaker 1: was a yellow cloud, almost like a mist, that covered everything,
Speaker 1: and unlike a morning fog, which tends to dissipate after sunrise,
Speaker 1: The sickening smug stuck around for days. The local high
Speaker 1: school football game on October was almost unplayable, with neither
Speaker 1: teen throwing any passes. The whole time. Someone would punt
Speaker 1: the ball or kick it across the field and it
Speaker 1: would be swallowed by the smog. People in the stands
Speaker 1: had a hard and enough time getting to the field.
Speaker 1: With such poor visibility on the roads, they couldn't see
Speaker 1: anything happening on the field. Donora, by the way, lost
Speaker 1: the game to seven. October also marked the first death
Speaker 1: as a result of the smog. The victim died at
Speaker 1: Donora Hospital around two o'clock in the morning of acute asthma.
Speaker 1: In fact, nineteen more residents, including several from the next
Speaker 1: town over, died from asthma or a related condition. The
Speaker 1: smog had made it impossible for people to breathe. Those
Speaker 1: who were still alive checked themselves into the hospital, which
Speaker 1: quickly filled up with coughing and wheezing patients. A short
Speaker 1: time later, the hospital had no choice but to turn
Speaker 1: people away, and Dr William Rongauss walked the streets with
Speaker 1: a lantern in his hand and guided ambulances to the
Speaker 1: homes where they were needed. The most critical patients were
Speaker 1: then carefully driven back to the hospital for oxygen. Fire
Speaker 1: Department Chief Russell Davis navigated the dense cloud by scraping
Speaker 1: his wheels along the curb as he drove. Anyone who
Speaker 1: was still healthy enough to get out of Donora was
Speaker 1: encouraged to do so. Unfortunately, the haze was so thick
Speaker 1: it was impossible for anyone to see more than a
Speaker 1: few inches in front of themselves, so driving out was
Speaker 1: out of the question. Instead, many locals just hunkered down
Speaker 1: indoors and waited it out. By Halloween Day, the smog
Speaker 1: still hadn't lifted, It felt like it might never leave,
Speaker 1: and the body count was rising. Finally, just before sunset
Speaker 1: on Sunday, October thirty one, the cloud suddenly disappeared, just
Speaker 1: as unceremoniously as it had arrived. So what had caused it? Well,
Speaker 1: the same zinc plant that had brought jobs to Dinora
Speaker 1: had also brought a lot of pollution as well. Local
Speaker 1: farmers had actually sued U S Steel for killing their
Speaker 1: crops and livestock back in the nineteen twenties, but the
Speaker 1: company had fought back, and one in October of all
Speaker 1: those zinc and metal pollutants were in the air as usual,
Speaker 1: but this time other nature threw a wrench into the
Speaker 1: mix in the form of a temperature inversion. Normally, as
Speaker 1: the air rises into the atmosphere, it cools. The higher
Speaker 1: it goes, the colder that air gets. However, in a
Speaker 1: temperature inversion, a layer of cold air is covered by
Speaker 1: a layer of warm air, trapping the cold air close
Speaker 1: to the Earth's surface. For Donora, Pennsylvania, that cold air
Speaker 1: was full of toxic gases and particulates, which formed a
Speaker 1: yellow fog that covered the town. Experts believed that had
Speaker 1: the smog stuck around any longer, thousands more would have died.
Speaker 1: But despite the depths and the toxicity of the mills,
Speaker 1: u S Steel was not run out of Donora. The
Speaker 1: people there depended on the company for their livelihoods. Even
Speaker 1: a government investigation refused to blame them for the twenty
Speaker 1: deaths and the six thousand six, instead declaring the temperature
Speaker 1: inversion as one of the main causes. The press, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, was much less forgiving the story of
Speaker 1: the Donora smog disaster of spread far and wide. A
Speaker 1: piece was even published in the New Yorker magazine that
Speaker 1: went into detail about the ordeal DeNora residents had gone through,
Speaker 1: with some subtle hints as to what really caused it.
Speaker 1: Some claim that the event kicked off the country's focus
Speaker 1: on clean air and emissions, which in turn sparked the
Speaker 1: enactment of the Clean Air Act in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: With a nationwide goal to reduce air pollutions signed into law,
Speaker 1: the people of Donora could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay
Speaker 1: curious as m