Speaker 1: Welcomed. Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart 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. Born and raised in Norfolk, England, in nine six,
Speaker 1: Arthur started getting visions early on. He was only twelve
Speaker 1: years old when he began dreaming of a city made
Speaker 1: of stone. It had been carved into the side of
Speaker 1: a mountain in the desert, somewhere far from England, a
Speaker 1: place he had never seen before with his own eyes.
Speaker 1: The visions only grew more intense as Arthur got older,
Speaker 1: with the image of the city becoming clearer in his mind.
Speaker 1: As time by. They left him upset, but he couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out the reason why. It was during a visit
Speaker 1: to his local beach when the clearest vision presented itself.
Speaker 1: Arthur had been playing among the orange and pink colored
Speaker 1: pebbles along the shore when he was whisked away to
Speaker 1: the city in the mountain. There was as though he
Speaker 1: had been teleported there. The beach faded away around him,
Speaker 1: and he was suddenly standing within the walls of the
Speaker 1: city itself. What he didn't realize was that the colors
Speaker 1: of the pebbles had triggered his strongest vision yet due
Speaker 1: to their resemblance to the son of the city. What
Speaker 1: confounded him was that he had never seen such a
Speaker 1: structure before in his life. He didn't read books about
Speaker 1: traveling to exotic locations, nor had he left Norfolk, but
Speaker 1: the place felt so real and familiar. He hadn't invented it.
Speaker 1: It was like he was living someone else's memories. After
Speaker 1: that day at the beach, Arthur received more bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of information. They were being beamed straight into his
Speaker 1: brain from some far off satellite. He returned to the beach,
Speaker 1: to the pink and the orange pebbles under his feet,
Speaker 1: and just as before, they transported him back to the
Speaker 1: city in the mountain, but he saw more on each
Speaker 1: mental trip. There were streets and passageways. A military barracks
Speaker 1: had been built nearby, and he got the sense that
Speaker 1: he was a soldier, one who had been killed by
Speaker 1: a spear in battle. Arthur stopped going to the beach
Speaker 1: after that. He kept his dreams to himself, although he
Speaker 1: continued to have them well into his old age. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until he was watching a BBC documentary about ancient
Speaker 1: Jordan when he finally saw the city he had been
Speaker 1: dreaming about for real. It was Petra, also known as
Speaker 1: the resting place of the Holy Grail for fellow Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones fans. Arthur was a static at the realization and
Speaker 1: reached out to the BBC about the documentary. He told
Speaker 1: them about his lifelong visions, and rather than hang up
Speaker 1: on him, they believed him. He became the subject of
Speaker 1: a segment on another BBC program and was subsequently interviewed
Speaker 1: by an archaeologist with a deep knowledge of Petra. The
Speaker 1: archaeologist was floored by how much Arthur knew about the city,
Speaker 1: considering he had never laid eyes on it before the documentary.
Speaker 1: He knew details that no average person would know without
Speaker 1: having been there themselves. The Jordanian government got wind of
Speaker 1: Arthur's miraculous story and invited him to Petra to demonstrate
Speaker 1: his innate knowledge. Set loose on his own, he walked
Speaker 1: through it as though he had grown up there. He
Speaker 1: knew every street and landmark. He was even able to
Speaker 1: explain parts of the city that had been yet to
Speaker 1: be excavated. When presented with artifacts and buildings that the
Speaker 1: so called experts could not understand, Arthur calmly told them
Speaker 1: about their true purposes, which happened to be correct. All
Speaker 1: attempts to stump him or prove him to be a
Speaker 1: sham failed. Arthur knew more about Petra than archaeologists and
Speaker 1: the people of Jordan's but how it was believed that
Speaker 1: he had been glimpsing the past life of a Jordanian soldier,
Speaker 1: one who had died centuries ago. Arthur was seen by
Speaker 1: many spiritual leaders as proof that reincard nation was a
Speaker 1: real phenomenon. True or not, it was certainly curious. Arthur
Speaker 1: flower Do didn't see much more excitement during his time
Speaker 1: on Earth, but he and his past life did prove
Speaker 1: one thing. Life's a beach and then you die. When
Speaker 1: someone loses a limb, such as an arm or a leg,
Speaker 1: the road to recovery can be rough. They may have
Speaker 1: to fight off infection or learn how to do things
Speaker 1: with only one appendage that they used to do with two.
Speaker 1: Tying their shoes, walking, and buttoning up their shirt are
Speaker 1: all made more difficult. But the story doesn't end with
Speaker 1: that loss. It goes on as the person at its
Speaker 1: center continues to grow and adapt. They may get a
Speaker 1: prosthetic device, which brings its own set of challenges. But
Speaker 1: no matter what, the tail of a lost limb is
Speaker 1: always about the person it once belonged too well. Usually.
Speaker 1: Henry Paget, the Earl of Uxbridge and the first Marquess
Speaker 1: of Anglesey, was born in seventeen sixty eight to a
Speaker 1: wealthy English family. He was well educated and entered Parliament
Speaker 1: when he was only twenty two years old. Paget continued
Speaker 1: to climb the political ladder into the eighteen hundreds, while
Speaker 1: also joining the military to fight the French in seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety three. As major general and later lieutenant general, Paget
Speaker 1: commanded formidable cavalries against France, and his men regularly defeated
Speaker 1: them in battle. However, it was at the Battle of
Speaker 1: Waterloo where Paget had his uh Waterloo moment. On June
Speaker 1: eighteenth of eighteen fifteen, he was in charge of thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand cavalry and forty four members of the horse artillery,
Speaker 1: which he led into the fray after taking on thousands
Speaker 1: of French infantry. The charge of two thousand British heavy
Speaker 1: cavaltry led by Paget had successfully managed to drive them back. However,
Speaker 1: Paget's men continued to chase after them and were eventually
Speaker 1: met with force by additional French cavalry. Paget did his
Speaker 1: best to counter their attacks with roughly nine lightly armed
Speaker 1: cavalry charges, but he kept running into the same problem.
Speaker 1: His horses continued to get blown out from under him
Speaker 1: by cannon fire. Every time he went down, Paget got
Speaker 1: back up on a new horse. By the end of
Speaker 1: the fight, it seemed as though he had made it
Speaker 1: out okay, though the same couldn't be said of the horses. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the French weren't done yet, though. They fired their cannons
Speaker 1: a few more times, and as Paget was trotting away
Speaker 1: beside the Duke of Wellington's one of their cannon balls
Speaker 1: collided with his knee. It was shattered into a thousand pieces.
Speaker 1: Although Paget's stiff upper lip refused to buckle, he allegedly
Speaker 1: said to the Duke, by God, Sir, I've lost my leg,
Speaker 1: and the Duke of Wellington was believed to have replied
Speaker 1: by God, sir, so you have. Paget was brought to
Speaker 1: a surgeon who took one look at his leg and
Speaker 1: knew immediately that it couldn't be saved. The limb was
Speaker 1: amputated shortly thereafter at the Belgian home of a man
Speaker 1: named Hyacinthe Joseph Marie Kari, but since Paget was in
Speaker 1: the midst of war with no access to proper health
Speaker 1: care facilities, the surgery was completed without anesthetic, but that
Speaker 1: didn't phase the general. He said that the knives felt
Speaker 1: kind of blunt as the doctor cut the limb away,
Speaker 1: and when it was all over, Henry Paget was down
Speaker 1: one leg, and Monsieur Peris had increased his number of
Speaker 1: appendages by one. That's right. The owner of the house
Speaker 1: where the amputation had taken place had also taken possession
Speaker 1: of Paget's discarded leg. He buried it in his garden
Speaker 1: outside and turned it into a kind of shrine or altar,
Speaker 1: complete with a tombstone. Others heard about the strange leg
Speaker 1: grave at Pari's home and began showing up at his
Speaker 1: doorstep to see it, and Paris, seeing a lucrative business
Speaker 1: opportunity before him started charging a fee for visitors. Sixty
Speaker 1: odd years later, Paget's son made a pilgrimage to the
Speaker 1: house to see the shrine for himself. What he found
Speaker 1: flabbergast at him. The leg had been removed from its
Speaker 1: grave and placed on display for all to see. The
Speaker 1: change in ven you had been made after a big
Speaker 1: storm had disturbed the ground where it had been interred.
Speaker 1: The British government stepped in and requested the bones be
Speaker 1: returned to the Paget's family. Peri's Air said that he
Speaker 1: would happily hand it over for a price. The Belgian
Speaker 1: Minister of Justice then told him to put the leg
Speaker 1: back in the ground so as to avoid an international incident.
Speaker 1: Paris Airs obliged taking down the public display, but he
Speaker 1: didn't rebury the bones as ordered. Instead, he tucked them
Speaker 1: away in his study, only to have them discovered by
Speaker 1: his widow following his death in nineteen thirty five. She
Speaker 1: was so upset by the presence that she tossed them
Speaker 1: in the homes furnace and cremated them. But Henry Paget,
Speaker 1: the Earl of Uxbridge, had moved on from his injury
Speaker 1: long before. After a year long recovery, he was fitted
Speaker 1: with one of the first ever prosthetic limbs that could
Speaker 1: bend at the knee. It had been built from wood
Speaker 1: and leather with springs inside. With it strapped onto his thigh,
Speaker 1: he was able to ride horses again until his death
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four at the age of eighty five.
Speaker 1: Paget never got to see his lost limb again. His
Speaker 1: son did have the chance to bring it home later
Speaker 1: in life, but unfortunately, thanks to Monsieur Perry's own air,
Speaker 1: it would have cost him an arm and a leg.
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 curious.